John and I pulled some weeds at the school on saturday while Ella and her daddy rode nine miles on the Huckleberry Trail. After the weeding we dropped by the playground where John liked to play last year. He just stood there for a while and then said, "Mama, the roundy roundy playground has gotten smaller. The swings are smaller, the slide is smaller." Maybe it is time to move on to bigger playgrounds for bigger boys.

Monday, August 24, 2009

We spent a long weekend at the Breaks Interstate Park on the Viginia Kentucky border. We camped out, had campfires, cooked over an open fire, hiked, swam, and rode horses. Our children are happy out in the woods. The mushrooms were incredible this year. We heard the hooting owls at night and the pileated woodpecker during the day.

I thought it would be fun to find this family photo from our Breaks Interstate Park camping trip two years ago. John is two and in a backpack. This year he had to hike on his own two feet with Ruby in a pack. Ella is a little cusp of a kindergartner. We spent this weekend trying to decide if we should send her to private or public school. A space had become available at the private school and she could start monday if we were willing to take the leap. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Monday, August 17, 2009

There are seven more summer days until the official first day of school, so yesterday the children and I swooped across Virginia, stopping at my brother's house for swimming, floating, sunflowers, goldfinches, swarms of hummingbirds, local steaks on the grill, devilled eggs, hound dogs, and lemonade. The giant hummingbird feeder by the pool had to be refilled. I've never seen or heard so many at once.

We are going to spend a few days with Grandmarie and then fly back to mountain town to reload for a few days of state park camping. Big bonfires. Bears. I'm planning on some cozy kid camping. I don't want to tuck into the outskirts. Old Mother Hubbard is camping between the playground and the bathrooms.

This may be the nicest four year old ever born. I'm so lucky he is going to marry Ruby and live with me forever. He loved his birthday party and was so happy to have almost all of his special friends there. He is a little boy who really appreciates his life, his dinner, his Curious George book. He is so in the moment. Did you know that when he plays "puppy" his dog name is always "Rascal"?

I demolished the kitchen counter today, and the children "helped". My hands are hurting, but the old counter is gone, and the new one is perched in it's place. Tomorrow I have to nail it all together and screw it on, but it already looks so much better. I'm wondering why I waited three years to do this. The tile was always so gross. The new one certainly isn't the countertop of anyone's dreams, this faux labrador granite formica, but I want to make bread just because I have a nice place to knead it on. I'm going to need some help to do the sink side, but I want to do it as soon as possible. Then some new carpet, some linoleum, paint a few more rooms, and I'll be ready to move to the farm.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

I can tell I'm nuch busier this summer than last because I don't seem to have time to take pictures of my weekly CSA haul. It is finally hot here, but fall is lurking. Today we got a huge cantaloupe, peaches, nectarines, early apples, green beans, purple potatoes, basil, lettuce, small leeks, pattypans, zucchini, garlic, and tomatoes, and eggs.

The flower is growing on the mammoth sunflower in our front yard, and we are counting the days until school starts, twenty. Can go to the lake three more times? Is there a weekend for camping? Can we eat a few more ears of corn?

John turns four on monday, and we are having a party on sunday. I realized today that there is a whole group of people, all of my friends here in Smalltown, who have never known me when I wasn't pregnant or nursing. Ruby will be fourteen months old next week. She still isn't walking but is starting to stand without holding on to anything. She boldly climbed the steps this weekend, and I had to run out and get a baby gate. She is happy to be in the midst of whatever the other two are doing and she dons her "costume" with gusto.

We need to pick raspberries. The spiders are starting to build their webs.

About Me

Literally translated, oya baka is a japanese word that means "parent stupid", over the top big love for my three littles.
We moved to Appalachia after spending six years in Portland, Oregon. Our native Oregonian is fifteen years old now, and the
little man is eleven. Ruby June is eight.
We moved into a 130 year old farmhouse in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I like homemade music, chickens, taking photos, kimchi making, bread kneading, seed planting, star gazing, tent camping, coffee drinking, zinnias, borage flowers, sunflowers, Adrienne Rich, the smell of old books, candle smoke, red wine, wood fires, Mary Oliver, sriracha,
and knitting on the back porch. By day, I teach preschool.